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Well, a team (or the owner of the $10K car) has to be *willing* to pay the higher price in order to achieve a specified goal. In the case of the team, it's the willingness to pay $15,200,000 more than the $800,000 being paid to Ryan and Jay in order to achieve the goal of a postseason victory. In the case of the guy paying $4850 more a month for a $350K car, it's to achieve the goal of impressing the chicks - or something.

What it boils down to is not so much whether Ryan provides equal value (or, "bang for the buck", to use the old cliche) for his $400K as Oswalt does for his $16MM, but whether the Cards think it's worth the extra expenditure to pay that much for Oswalt.

Clearly, they're willing - the hard part is convincing Houston that what we're offering is all they're going to get, judging by the clear implication that St. Louis is the only team to which Oswalt will approve a trade.

The key difference is that cars have the same value, while baseball players are commodities of different values. If you pay $10k for an investment expected to give $10k worth of value, trading it more-or-less straight up for a $50k investment expected to be worth $50k when its owner wants to minimize his exposure and you want to increase yours is reasonable.

It's rather bewildering that taxman legitimately thinks that anyone who misread his club's prospects in the offseason, and needs to invest in a few additional wins, is so limited in his options that he's going to overpay this massively, or that he would be allowed to. There is just way too much information available for trades that stupid to routinely happen.

Has Oswalt or his agent elaborated on why STL is his preferred destination? Pitching for Duncan? Awesome fans? Local ties? Pixie dust?

Felix The Cat wrote:Has Oswalt or his agent elaborated on why STL is his preferred destination? Pitching for Duncan? Awesome fans? Local ties? Pixie dust?

Caterpillar's headquarters are in Peoria.

AWvsCBsteeeerike3 wrote:

vinsanity wrote:If I go out and pay $10K for a $10K car, and you pay $50K for a $50K car, if I said hey wanna trade straight up, would you? Each is worth exactly it costs to keep it. The expensive one is probably nicer, more dependable and more likely to last longer. But it costs more to use per month.

That's not a fair analogy. Let's bump the expensive car up to 350K, just to get the scales closer. The $350K car isn't paid off, the AStros are paying something like $6000/month for the 350K car. The 10K car isn't paid off either, the Cardinals are paying something like $150/month for the 10K car. So....if you want to trade, there is a large price difference. And, if you made the trade, you would just trade the note payments and the car; you wouldn't trade the cars, payments and then force the Cardinals to give up a Rolls Royce in the making....

The scales don't matter.

As I said further down in my post, I understand the point. But by using that as long as they are both getting paid market value they are even in is kinda bull. I mean I understand the theory/idea behind it sure. But that would mean if Ryan was a .5 WAR player making league minimum he'd be worth more than a $10M player only worth 2 wins.

In a vacuum when you discuss this theory I can see what you mean, especially to a team out of a contention. But I don't think the Phils are gonna trade Jamie Moyer for Brendan Ryan (positional needs aside) just because Ryan is a better 'value'.

I believe the idea is that each addition win costs a little bit more. Plus it's not a FA market, I believe others had pointed out as well. Oswalt/top of the rotation starters are a limited commodity and so the price in a trade is a little bit different than if going to a car lot for a car

I guess because I was in the USAF from 1950-1954, and was stationed in England for a time in 1951, I always think of Blake Hawksworth as the name of some RAF Spitfire fighter pilot who just returned to RAF Sculthorpe after shooting down two German ME-109's in WW 2. Maybe that is why I find myself rooting for him.

The reality is that he seems to be coming along, but he threw 94 pitches in 4 innings the other day. That will not get it done, I fear. I am sure Tony and Dave are aware of this, but he seems to be afraid to throw strikes and always finds himself in 3-2 counts where the batter knows he is getting a meatball next. Results are not that good then. Until he can feel confident in throwing strikes with something on them, I think he is going to struggle. Can we wait that long this year? I don't think so.

I love Soup, but this is a failled ploy from the start. We are giving away games where he is the starter. If Lohse and Penny come back, then these pieces can be moved around and be workable for us. Soup and Hawk could go to long relief, something good to have on hand.

If the front office decides that this a year to go for broke, I think they might go for Oswalt, even if they overpay a little. There will next year, too and the year after. Having Adam, Chris, and Roy as your top three guys is almost a guarantee of being in it every year. If one of them slides a little, you have some fall back room to keep building a top rate staff. I would have liked for Haren to have been that third leg on the stool, but he went to LA.

I believe they are waiting to see how Lohse works out, and if he can come back strongly, but if not- and Roy is still around, they could make a move for him. Timing right now is a big factor in this whole equation. Stay tuned.

Felix The Cat wrote:Has Oswalt or his agent elaborated on why STL is his preferred destination? Pitching for Duncan? Awesome fans? Local ties? Pixie dust?

No. But, killer B's of the past (biggio and bagwell come to mind) have both hinted of their respect for StL in past interviews. I think Bagwell was the one that said they limited any on field celebration in the 2005 NLCS because of their respect for St. Louis (both fans and professionals)

AWvsCBsteeeerike3 wrote:

Felix The Cat wrote:Has Oswalt or his agent elaborated on why STL is his preferred destination? Pitching for Duncan? Awesome fans? Local ties? Pixie dust?

No. But, killer B's of the past (biggio and bagwell come to mind) have both hinted of their respect for StL in past interviews. I think Bagwell was the one that said they limited any on field celebration in the 2005 NLCS because of their respect for St. Louis (both fans and professionals)

I'd heard some speculation about relative proximity to home in Mississippi and also that he may have a farm in Illinois.

greenback44 wrote:

Felix The Cat wrote:Has Oswalt or his agent elaborated on why STL is his preferred destination? Pitching for Duncan? Awesome fans? Local ties? Pixie dust?

Caterpillar's headquarters are in Peoria.

I don't use smilies often, but this post deserves one.

Cpebbles is doing a great job putting my statement "Oswalt isn't worth Miller" into an argument.

Straight up, there's just no way I send Miller for Oswalt. Not when we could spend that money more efficiently in the offseason, keep Miller, and turn our attention to another starter who could fill a role and add roughly one less win.